Life as a Physicist

Where did I go? March 18, 2010

There was an almost 3 month gap between those last two postings. Several of you privately asked me if everything was ok, and a few publically (on the blog) as well. So, thanks for asking! And I’m just fine.

It was a collision of a bunch of things that took me out of posting. I don’t think any single one would have done it, but they came together. I thought it would be fun to list them – as it might give those of you not on the inside of this science-rat-race a picture of what goes on. On the other hand, most of you may find it amazingly boring and feel I’m whining as everyone is really busy.

That is mostly what it came down to: busy.

I was teaching a graduate particle physics course. You’d think, as this is my field of research, I’d be expert in this. Well, some aspects I suppose, but basic field theory and phenomenology? Not really. I suspect that course was eating up about 20-30 hours a week, depending on what set of topics I was trying to teach.

I am co-leader of the ATLAS b-tagging group over at CERN. This has translated into my traveling to CERN almost once a month for the past year and a half. Let me tell you – that trip takes a lot out of you. Sometimes when I get back my body declares enough! And I end up sleeping from 9pm to 7am several days in a row. For a guy that does most of his work late at night let me tell you – that takes a bite out of productivity. Another thing this job has caused me to do is often get up very early for European late afternoon meetings. Which means, in general, I’m more tired. But I wouldn’t trade these two years – doing this as data first rolls in has been exhilarating!

If feels like our kid has started sleeping less or something else has changed – I get a lot less done than I used to on the weekends and in the evenings. Don’t read this wrong – our kid is about 3.5 years old and a hell of a lot of fun to hang around (and teach – she just learned how to spell her name with wooden alphabet blocks). But as any of you who are parents know, this takes real time!

Some of the topics I often post about on this blog are causing me a good deal of frustration. In particular, watching what this state (and others) are doing to the US public education system. We already know that grade school and high school do not measure up well in the rest of the world. Our college and university system, however, is second to none. You’d think the obvious thing to do would be to try to bring the grade school and high school education up to par. Instead, we seem to be doing the exact opposite. And let me tell you, there is nothing more depressing, frustrating, and anger inducing for someone like me than reading the comments of the Texas board of education members after their vote recent textbook vote. At some point one gets worn out. 🙂

HOLY COW. LHC DATA!!! Yes – that is right. And lots of it (ok, that is a relative thing). The group I help lead has produced lots of plots. Helping to guide these plots and analyses through ATLAS has been a great deal of fun, but it has also been 1000’s of emails and lots of headaches as everyone tries to figure out the right way to get these results out of the collaboration. Remember – technically all 2000 authors have to be given a chance to comment on these things. The resulting overhead is bound to be complex and will take a few iterations to get right. Further, the LHC has just restarted and now we are going to be running for an extended period at 7 TeV – it won’t be just performance plots anymore, but now real physics. And maybe hopefully some involving b-tagging. This means my summer will be “hell” [well, I’ll move to the south of France again for the summer, so hell is pretty relative].

Facebook. Yeah, I know, I know. I do love that it has reconnected me with so many people and as a result I do spend probably an hour or two on that site during a normal week (much more when traveling or when I’m trying to write an exam or homework solutions! ;-)).

Hobbies. These include things like photography and (yeah) computer programming (i.e. the deeptalk stuff). Actually, these have almost dropped to zero as well since December. Along with this blog I’m trying to restart them because they are, like this blog, things I enjoy and have missed.

I love my life. I’ve worked my butt off for many years to get to where I am now. Sure, there are things that could be better, but as far as it goes I’m amazingly lucky to be where I am now. Sadly, there are only 24 hours in a day, and so, sometimes something gets dropped on the floor.

At any rate, it is the start of finals week here at UW and next week is spring break. Which means I’m off to Chicago for a quick visit to Fermilab and my student and the D0 DAQ system, and then off to Geneva for a week long ATLAS meeting. But… no teaching. So I’m hoping I can get my blogging groove back.

But, honestly, the blog posts I do, I do because I like doing them. The second this feels like a chore… well… 🙂 At any rate, I should have something up for the logbook shortly – that is a fun topic to think about for a nerd like me!

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Sometimes I think we HEP experimenters live three lives simultaneously: as scientists in big collaborations, as professors in universities, and as spouses/parents/friends. I’m glad you will try to squeeze in a blog post or two – I’m trying to do the same. And there will be – are – lots and lots of things to blog about. 🙂